The Unbound Empire

by Melissa Caruso

  Marcello winced. “And? Did he?”

  “I’m not worried anymore.” I couldn’t quite keep my voice steady. “You care again. You want to be good. That’s what matters. If we keep working at it, you and I, that will be enough.”

  “Why didn’t you let me burn him?”

  Zaira asked the question in hushed tones, so as not to wake Marcello. She’d come to see how he was doing and found him sleeping; I’d nearly nodded off, myself, in the chair I’d dragged in from the kitchen.

  I blinked at her, coming more fully awake. “What?”

  She shrugged uncomfortably, as if the question were an itchy coat she couldn’t take off. “When we had to take down Captain Creepyface, here. Why did you stop me from burning him? You shouldn’t have had to stab him. You care too damned much.”

  I tried not to remember the feeling of the knife punching through skin and muscle, sinking into his side. “Well, for one thing, he was more likely to survive a knife wound than balefire.”

  “Bollocks,” Zaira said flatly. “You struck to kill. You were hoping he’d survive, but you weren’t planning on it. That wasn’t why—or at least, it wasn’t the only reason.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” I said quietly. “I thought you should never have to kill a friend again. I’ve always had the luxury of being the one who gives the word and keeps her hand clean. I thought if I was going to make the decision that Marcello had to…” Words caught in my throat, but I forced them out. “If we had to kill him, it was only right that I do it myself.”

  Zaira shook her head. “You’re a strange one, Cornaro.”

  “Perhaps.” Silence fell, then, broken only by the stutter of the candles and Marcello’s faintly labored breath. His brow creased even in sleep. He looked more like himself, worried and earnest. I could almost imagine that the scales were merely some strange mud streaked across his skin, or the scar of a nasty burn.

  Now was the time to do my staring, while he wasn’t awake to see it, relearning the new map of his face.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught Zaira rubbing her bare wrist. I nodded at it, smiling faintly. “So, what now? Your jess is off, and you can control your fire without it. Ruven is dead. The world is yours. What will you do?”

  Zaira’s eyes narrowed. “You take this ghoulish delight in asking me about my plans.”

  I grimaced. “Sorry. It’s my job to think of the future, so that’s where my mind goes. I don’t mean to put you on the spot.”

  She stared down at her wrist, then out the window at the darkness. The wind shushed through the trees and drew a faint moaning from the chimney. “I miss Terika,” she said at last. “Every time I think of going anywhere but back to her, it hurts.”

  “Mmm,” I said, hoping she’d go on if I could keep my mouth shut.

  My restraint was rewarded. Zaira sighed. “I guess if I’ve found the one woman on earth mad enough to put up with me, I should propose before she wakes up and changes her mind.”

  I impulsively moved to hug her, but corrected the motion to clasp her shoulder instead. “That’s the spirit.”

  “Hmph. It’s something, anyway. Maybe the Demon of Madness cursed me, too.”

  “So you’ll go back to the Empire, then?” I asked.

  “Seems like it. And anyway, it’s home.” Zaira waved a dismissive hand around the room. “Vaskandar has far too much nature and not enough decent pastry. Now that you’ve gotten that law passed and I can do whatever I damn well please with my life instead of being shut up in the Mews, there’s no reason to stay away.”

  I hesitated, trying to think of a delicate way to broach the matter, then recalled I was speaking to Zaira and delicacy was pointless. “You’d have to get another jess.”

  She rubbed her wrist again. “I’ve been thinking about that,” she admitted, her voice low. “When you can open a pit to the Nine Hells anytime, there are too many ways to miss a step and fall in. Look what Ruven did to Jerith. If that had been me, Raverra would be cinders now. And even if I can get my fire back under control now, that doesn’t mean I won’t ever lose it again—when I’m startled, when I’m mad, when I’m drunk, when I’m waking up from a nightmare.” She shook her head. “I don’t mind having a jess, so long as my Falconer isn’t an idiot.”

  “I’m inclined to take that as a compliment. But, Zaira…” I swallowed an unaccountable lump in my throat. “You do realize that they’ll never let me be your Falconer, now that your jess is off.”

  Zaira frowned. “Bugger that. I don’t want some random fuzz-mouthed green brat. It took me months to train you up to be tolerable.”

  My mouth twitched. “And I, too, would regret the end of our fond partnership. But it’s very much against the law, and even more so now that I’m on the Council of Nine.”

  “Curse it, there’s got to be something we can do.” Zaira crossed her arms. “Get your mamma to make an exception.”

  “She can’t.” Unbelievably, Zaira’s eyes moistened, and I felt mine stinging, too. “Not even the doge is above the law.”

  Marcello stirred, blinking open sleepy eyes. “I have a jess in my pouch,” he mumbled.

  “What?” I leaned over him, anxious. “How are you feeling? Do you need the physician?”

  “I have a jess in my pouch,” he repeated, more clearly, and waved at the top of a brightly painted clothes chest, where someone had neatly stacked his personal effects. “Officers in the Falconers carry a jess when they leave the Mews, in case of a magical emergency. Like an out-of-control fire warlock, as you may recall.”

  I stared at him. “I was so worried about Ruven getting his hand on one, and you had one all this time?”

  “He never thought to ask, so I didn’t have to tell him. All his questions were about the Falcons, not the Falconers, because he thought that only mages truly mattered.”

  Hope quickened my heartbeat. “But you’re only allowed to use that jess in emergencies,” I pointed out.

  Zaira laughed. “I’m a walking emergency. I can make one if you really want.”

  Marcello shrugged, then winced in pain. “I suspect the old me would have cared more about following regulations. But I can tell you that no one will notice it’s a different jess if we don’t tell them. You could only see that the knot was melted if you looked quite closely, and no one goes around staring at other peoples’ jesses like that.”

  Hearing Marcello advise us to circumvent the rules was like trying to put a glove on the wrong hand. But Zaira broke out into a broad smile. “All right, then! I like the new you.”

  She lifted a hand as if to slap him on the shoulder, but then reconsidered; whether out of respect for his near-fatal wound, or because his shoulder was bare and sweaty, I couldn’t guess. Instead, she scooped up his pouch from the pile on the chest and began rummaging through it.

  “What’s this?” she asked, pulling out a clumsily wire-wrapped chunk of quartz.

  Marcello flushed. “Istrella gave me that when she was small. It was her first pocket luminary. I used it up long ago, but I carry it as a good-luck charm.”

  “Ugh, you’re revolting.” Zaira made a gagging face and tucked it carefully back into his pouch. “Here it is.”

  She pulled out the jess. Its complex weave gleamed in the candlelight, clean and bright and unmarred by fire. The red gems winked as it dangled from her hand. Zaira stared at it, her mouth set in a skeptical line.

  “We don’t have to do this,” I said softly. “Not if you don’t want to.”

  “You’re a terrible listener. I said I wanted it.” She stuffed the jess into my hand. “I guess I trust you, more or less. And you’re better than a toothache.”

  “Promise me one thing,” I murmured.

  “What?” Zaira asked warily.

  “That you won’t say anything like that when you propose to Terika.”

  “Do I look like I want to be poisoned?” Zaira laughed. “I’m an idiot sometimes, but I’m not stupid.”

  She stuck out her hand
, waiting. I slid the jess over it, settling it carefully on her wrist; a shiver of magic hummed under my fingertips.

  I met her eyes. “Exsolvo,” I said.

  Zaira turned her wrist this way and that, peering at the jess. “Huh. It’s more comfortable when the knot isn’t all melted.”

  My shoulders relaxed, tension fleeing them that I hadn’t known was there. “Thank you,” I said softly. “For entrusting me with this. I’m honored.”

  “Don’t let it go to your head.”

  Then, to my extreme shock, Zaira reached over and gave me a quick, bony-armed hug.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The next morning, I came downstairs from my cozy borrowed bedroom to find Kathe, Marcello, and Zaira already having breakfast at the simple oak dining room table. Kathe had collapsed into bed after his talk with his Heartguard, slept the whole night through, and looked entirely refreshed and reinvigorated this morning. No sign remained that he’d been grievously wounded and trapped under a lake in a state bordering on death; even his leather tunic was mended. Marcello, on the other hand, looked as if he shouldn’t be up at all. He held himself with the careful fragility of someone wary of setting off pain with the tiniest move.

  “Sit down, Cornaro,” Zaira said through a mouthful of sausage. “Look, Vaskandran breakfast is a pile of meat!”

  I sighed and slid onto the bench next to Kathe and opposite Marcello. “It’s like that in Callamorne, too.” And tea instead of chocolate, but that at least was better than coffee. I spread butter on a slice of bread, soaking up the welcome sight of their faces. They might be worn and scarred, each in their way, but they had all come through this alive; and that was a miracle of the Graces for which I was profoundly thankful. “What world have we awakened to this morning? Is there any news?”

  “Buckets of it,” Zaira said. “Your crow beau here has been getting feathery messengers all morning.”

  Kathe nodded. “All of the controlled imperial soldiers were, of course, freed when Ruven died, and promptly turned to drive the remaining Kazerath forces out of the Empire. Ruven’s troops on the border are in disarray, as well, with mass desertions and infighting, and some of his mage officers trying to retain control. They’ll be lucky if they can manage an orderly withdrawal. His former allies among the Witch Lords have already withdrawn from the border. The Vaskandran threat to the Empire is over.”

  Marcello let out a relieved breath. “Thank the Graces.”

  “What about Kazerath?” I asked. “Ruven didn’t have an heir, did he?”

  Zaira snorted. “Such a shame. He’d have made a great dad.”

  Kathe pushed his plate away; he hadn’t eaten much. “No, he had no heir. Kazerath is like a slab of fresh meat thrown to a pack of dogs. I need to quickly decide how much of it I want to carve off for myself, and blood my claim before anyone else moves in.”

  “So you’re going to dive in first and start the fight?” Zaira asked. “You don’t seem like the type.”

  Kathe managed a shadow of his usual sharp grin. “My close associates and I have been involved in the deaths of three Witch Lords in the past few months. That’s almost unheard of in our history. So long as I mind my own business, my dear peers should be willing enough to leave me alone for a while. And since I was the only Witch Lord involved in killing Ruven, by rights I could claim all of Kazerath if I wished.”

  “Will you?” I asked.

  His smile faded. “No. You’ve seen the way I rule. I like having a small domain. I want to know the faces of my people. And taking in too much of Kazerath might be like eating spoiled fruit. I’ll content myself with a small bite, and offer the rest to certain of my fellows as favors.”

  “That seems shrewd,” I approved. “How soon will you be doing that?”

  “First I have to go back to collect the Truce Stones and return them to the Lady of Spiders.” Kathe’s voice went soft and solemn. “And collect Hal’s remains, such as they are, to return to his family.”

  Hells. My friends might have survived, but not all of his had. “I’m so sorry,” I murmured, and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Do you need any help?”

  He shook his head, avoiding my eyes. “I’ve called the rest of the Heartguard. I’m going to wait for them to arrive, and we’ll go together.”

  Marcello rose then, his lips pale. “Excuse me,” he said hoarsely, “I think I need to lie down.” And he left the dining room with the unsteady tread of a man on the brink of fainting.

  I lifted a hand to my mouth. “I forgot that he was the one who shot Hal.”

  “I didn’t.” Kathe’s voice took on an edge. “He apologized the moment he saw me this morning, and offered his life in return. I didn’t take him up on it. But neither will I spare his feelings by dancing around the subject of my good friend’s death.”

  “I wouldn’t ask you to. Hal deserves to be spoken of with honor and pride.” I stood, my heart aching for both of them. “If you’ll excuse me a moment, I should make sure he’s all right.”

  I found Marcello sitting on the worn floorboards in the upstairs hallway, leaning against the pale plastered wall, his eyes closed. I sat down beside him in silence, feeling his warmth along my hip and shoulder even if we didn’t quite touch.

  “You didn’t have to come after me,” he said quietly.

  “I left you alone when you were hurting once, and I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself for it,” I said. “I’m not going to do it again.”

  He turned his mismatched eyes on me. It was easier to meet them both this time; I could start to see the human pain in both of them, green and orange alike.

  “The hardest part,” he said, “is that I’m not as upset as I should be.”

  “About Hal?” I asked.

  “About all of it.” He gestured around as if the ghosts of the people he’d killed stood silently in the hall. “I murdered the doge, for Graces’ sakes. I’m not happy about it—I don’t have Ruven’s sick joy poisoning me anymore—but the place where that horror should live is locked away. Or empty.” His fists curled tight on the floor beside him.

  I laid my hand over his; the ridges of his knuckles stood out like a handful of dice. “It could just be shock.”

  “Or Ruven scooped out my ability to feel guilt. I don’t know, Amalia. I hate that for every thought and feeling, I have to second-guess whether it’s the real me feeling that way, or whether it’s the monster he tried to make me.” He turned his palm up, lying flat so that my hand lay in his. His claws curled past the tips of his fingers, unsheathed and hooking a good half inch into the air. “Look at me. I’m not the man you knew anymore.”

  I slid my fingers carefully through his, claws and all, and met his gaze squarely. “But you’re still the man I love.”

  That was his own dear worried expression, the familiar divot between his brows. I brushed the hair back from his orange eye, then ran my fingertips down the scales on the side of his face. They were softer and smoother than I expected, and no stubble grew on them like it did on the rest of his jaw.

  “You need a shave,” I said.

  He let out a surprised, helpless laugh that was half a sob. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “I’m not certain how I feel about stubble,” I sighed. “But I suppose I’ll kiss you anyway.”

  His eyes widened. Before he could say something foolish about being a chimera, I touched my lips to his, which were warm and soft as I remembered. I kissed him tenderly, lingeringly, trying to pour how much I cared about him into that one small melting moment.

  At first he pulled away, his breath catching in shame. “You don’t have to—”

  “I know I don’t have to,” I said. “I want to. Because I love you.”

  A shiver ran through him, and he closed his eyes. Our lips met again, slow and gentle. I didn’t want it to end, by the Grace of Love—he was still Marcello, still sunlight on warm green grass and the scent of leather and the comfort of a home that had never been mine, except in dreams. I wanted to
lean against his shoulder and hold him in my arms forever, especially after how close I’d come to ending everything that was good about him with my own hands.

  But eventually he drew back, still clasping my shoulders. His sheathed claw tips caught the fabric of my jacket.

  “Wait. You said you love me.” His brows lifted in surprise, as if the words had only now reached his ears.

  “I should have said it a long time ago.” I laid my hand along his stubble-roughened cheek, my eyes stinging. “You were right. I took you for granted, and I’m sorry. But I was afraid.”

  “You mean those awful things I said when I was under Ruven’s influence?” He waved an anxious hand. “I said all that to be cruel, Amalia, it wasn’t—”

  “It was true,” I interrupted. “Sometimes the truth is cruel.”

  He swallowed. The old Marcello would have denied it, even to himself. But for all I missed his innocence, he had traded it for a deeper, less comfortable knowledge, graven into the harder lines of his handsome face.

  “What were you afraid of?” he whispered instead.

  “A choice.” I let my fingers slide down his jaw to his collarbone, the one Ruven had broken; it was wholly mended now, with no sign it had ever been injured. “If I admitted I loved you, it wasn’t just a fancy or flirtation that could go on forever. If I loved you, I had to decide what I was going to do about it, once and for all. No more ifs and maybes and somedays.” I met his eyes squarely; I owed him too much to avoid facing the truth any longer. “If I acknowledged how much I was giving up, it would be harder to… to…” My throat betrayed me, seizing up in a hard knot.

  His hands closed over mine. “You don’t have to say it. I know you can’t court the chimera who murdered the doge.” Bitterness edged his voice, though I could tell he tried to keep it out.

  “No! That’s not why.” I couldn’t let him think that. A pressure built in my chest until I felt certain something would tear. “If that were all, I would fight them for you—my mother and the Council and all of Raverran society, anyone who tried to tell us no—and I would win.” I took a deep, shuddery breath. “If we weren’t who we were, I would ask you to marry me. I have this little dream, Marcello, this selfish dream, of coming home to your smile every day.” The image lodged in my heart like a thorn: those wonderful dimples I hadn’t seen in too long, warmed by the clear light of the sun slanting through my palace windows. “Of having children together, and watching you play with them. You would be such a good father.” The tears brimmed over at last, running hot down my cheeks, but I let them fall.